2004 BMW 5 Series 525i review from North America

Radio/CD player started hissing all of a sudden. Slight rattle in the dash. Dynamic drive malfunction on a cold day.

Promptly fixed by dealer under warranty.

This is one excellent car. I have one with sports package and 6 speed manual transmission and its really satisfying to drive. Handling is exemplary and power delivery is smooth and power keeps on coming no matter what speed you are at. Gives great gas mileage. I have been regularly getting about 23-23mpg in city and have topped at 34mpg (with a very light foot) on the highway. regularly it gives around 29-30mpg around 75-80mph speeds. There is slight road noise in the car and its not that quiet, but its definitely not annoying. There is a lot of wind noise when I open the sunroof shade.

The CD player is very good. 10 speakers are enough for me.

The cons:-------

1) Seats - very uncomfortable to the point I am thinking of trading in for something else.

2) Clutch is not smooth and is heavy. Gears are notchy and have a lot of travel. The whole car jerks while changing gears from 1-2 and 2-3. Its seems there is no way to avoid that jerk no matter how smoothly you leave of the clutch. I drove an my friends Acura TL with a manual - its clutch was like butter and gear throw was short and precise. But it did not match the handling and power delivery of my car.

3) Very little engine exhaust note when accelerating. Would like to have a little exhaust noise (like in my previous 7 series which had nice V8 burble under acceleration.)

4) Other people tend to speed up when I try to merge into a lane, This did not happen to me before - jealousy, i assume.

Overall, I really like this car. Active steering is excellent. Adaptive headlights are cool. They impress a lot of people when the car is started and the lights move up and down, right and left as if looking for something. Car draws a lot of jealous stares.

Dealer service is great.

Reliability has been good overall. Bmw engines and transmission are very reliable, but I am a little worried about the in car gadgetry after the warranty runs out. They may be really expensive to fix.

IDrive is great once you get used to it.